Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden

Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1908-3 September 1967) was a Saudi multimillionaire construction businessman who founded the Saudi Binladin Group and established the wealth and prestige of the Bin Laden family. He was the father of Osama bin Laden.

Biography
Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born in Hadhramaut, Yemen in 1908 to a poor and uneducated family, and he worked as a porter in Jeddah before starting his own construction business in 1930. He attracted the attention of King Ibn Saud and became so successful that his family became the wealthiest non-royal family in Saudi Arabia, and he was known for his shrewd business sense, his alliance with the Saudi monarchy, his reliability, and his willingness to accept the lowest bid for a contract. Bin Laden became known as the "royal builder" of Saudi Arabia, but, in 1964, he was hired by President Amin al-Hafiz of Syria to import agricultural equipment and build a top-secret water pumping station at Shallal during the War over Water with Israel; in this capacity, he twice met with the undercover Israeli Mossad agent Eli Cohen, who was posing as the import-export businessman Kamel Amin Thaabet, and he recruited him to import his agricultural equipment from Yugoslavia. Bin Laden had a total of 56 children by 22 wives, and he was planning to marry a 23rd wife when he died in a plane crash in the 'Asir Region of Saudi Arabia en route to marry her.